Capacity Assessment

On this page, you will find resources for: 

• Lawyers 
• Judges 
• Psychologists
• Physicians 

For Lawyers

PRACTICAL Guide--A Guardianship Practice Tool

This resource guide aims to help lawyers identify and implement decision-making options for persons with disabilities that are less restrictive than guardianship. “PRACTICAL” is an acronym for nine steps lawyers can use in case analysis to identify legal and practical approaches to heighten self-determination before moving ahead with guardianship.

Learn more about the PRACTICAL Guide and Tool

Developing Dementia Capable Legal Professionals (Hawaii Training, Feb. 2015)

• Streaming video (with slides)
• Agenda
• Introduction
• Ethics
• Protecting Individual Rights
• Planning for Incapacity 
  

Legal Issues and Alzheimer’s Webinar Series

• Part 1: For Legal Professionals Working with People with Dementia and Assessing Client Capacity by Erica Wood, Esq., and Jane Tilly, DrPH (November 2012)
  • Part 1: Materials.

Assessment of Older Adults with Diminished Capacity: A Handbook for Lawyers

This book offers ideas and makes suggestions for attorneys who wish to balance the competing goals of autonomy and protection as they confront the difficult challenges of working with older adults with problems in decision-making capacity. 2005, reprinted 2007.

• Front Matter
• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Chapter 1: Importance of Lawyer Assessment of Client Capacity
• Chapter 2: Legal Standards of Diminished Capacity
• Chapter 3: Clinical Models of Capacity
• Chapter 4: Lawyer Assessment of Capacity
• Capacity Worksheet for Lawyers
• Chapter 5: Techniques Lawyers Can Use to Enhance Client Capacity
• Chapter 6: Referrals for Consultation or Formal Assessment
• Chapter 7: Understanding and Using the Capacity Assessment Report
• Appendices

Order a printed copy or a complete PDF download from the ABA Webstore.

Competency: Reforming Our Legal Fictions

 by Charles Sabatino and Suzzanna L. Bassinger, Journal of Mental Health and Aging, pp. 119- 144 (2000).

For Judges

Judicial Determination of Capacity of Older Adults in Guardianship Proceedings

This book contains practical tools to equip a wide audience of judges to conduct any form of guardianship proceeding more effectively. Includes links to expanded information, work sheets, and model forms. 2006.

• Publication pdf (49 pages)
  
• Publication pdf, with appendices (94 pages)
  
• Order a printed copy from the ABA webstore

For Physicians

New Online Course for Primary Care Physicians and Other Clinicians on Assessment of Capacity of Older Adults  

Rush University Medical Center and the Commission on Law and Aging have released an interactive online education curriculum on assessing the capacity of older adults, funded by The Retirement Research Foundation. The course is timely because demographic, technological, medical and other vast changes affecting medical professionals are making capacity assessment a growing challenge. The curriculum is aimed at physicians but valuable for all health care clinicians and students. A press release with more details is available here.

Assessment of Older Adults with Diminished Capacity: A Handbook for Psychologists

This handbook is designed for psychologists evaluating civil capacities of older adults. 2008. 146 pp.

• Publication pdf
• Printed copies are no longer available.

Articles

Evaluating the Capacity to Drive, by Erica F. Wood, Bifocal, Vol. 37, No. 4. March – April 2016

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